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Ta, Felicia: Theresa's Thexit. May she never return.

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Sat, 05/25/2019 - 8:10am

Or, how can we miss ya unless ya leave?

Most of this post is an excerpt from an article in the ever so cool Jacobinabout the long overdue ouster of the UK's Theresa May as Prime Minister and head of the Conservative Party. As you know, May has been a darling of so-called centrists, who should be known as what they actually are: alt neoliberalcons.

Not with a bang nor a whimper, but a wretched sob, Theresa May’s premiership came to an end with scarcely controlled weeping, as she tried to finish her resignation speech, broadcast live to millions. She was forced out not by poor European election results for the Conservatives — though the results, released Sunday, will surely show complete humiliation for her party — but by her own party, terrified she was harming their chances of ever catching a sniff of power again, or of enacting the Brexit the vast majority of Tories still want, in any form.

{paragraph deleted}

The reality is that she will go down in history as one of the worst British premiers....

It’s difficult to feel any sympathy for a politician who has presided over racist and xenophobic immigration policies and the immiseration of countless lives under austerity. Any tears shed should be reserved for the victims of her policies: the people deported from their homes, the women and children with nowhere to go because of cuts to domestic violence shelters. On the morning of May’s resignation, more than 120,000 children were living in temporary housing, designed for short term emergency use — a rise of 80 percent since 2010.

Theresa May’s tears should have been shed for any of those people affected by her decisions, but were, in the end, only for herself.

(bolding mine)

Because "immiseration" is a new word for me, I consulted Mr. Google. (Yes, I will switch to a less evil search engine, but not today.) The Free Dictionary, which doesn't immiserate anyone, reveals that "immiseration" means "To make miserable; impoverish."

The Free Dictionary, being not only free, but generous, gives a number of examples of use of "immiseration" in publications. Dear, dear reader, please allow me to share some of those examples with you and also to make so bold as to bold below at will:

There are no safe spaces left for poor minority youth only the promise of immiseration and a jail cell.Neoliberal politics and the dead bodies of children

It should be noted that The Clintons' Anti-Working-Class Record is emphatically not a pro-Republican or pro-Trump manifesto; the focus is on the Clintons' culpability in a status quo of immiseration for the working class.
The Clintons' Anti-Working-Class Record

Racialized Neoliberal Capitalism and Imperialism in the Era of Austerity and Immiseration.
THE PROCESS OF RACIALIZATION FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME

The trend away from the free-trade bandwagon has even infiltrated the International Monetary Fund --the institution responsible for the immiseration of millions through its austerity programs.
The Liberal addiction to the Washington consensus

I rest my case. (If you ask, "What case?", I will but smile and wave.)

In my dreams, every neoliberal public office holder in every nation resigns and apologies sincerely and profusely. Speaking of which, I will post yet again the excerpt from Al From's wikipedia article that I post whenever I have even the flimiest of excuses so to do:

In 1998, with First Lady Hillary Clinton, From began a dialogue with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders, and the DLC brand – known as The Third Way – became a model for resurgent liberal governments around the globe.[18]

In April 1999, he hosted a Third Way forum in Washington with President Clinton, Prime Minister Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Prime Ministers Wim Kok of the Netherlands and Massimo D'Alema of Italy.[19]

In November 1999, joining President Clinton, From moderated the first-ever live Presidential town hall meeting on the Internet.

Full disclosure: The Free Dictionary gives a good number of other examples, which I omitted from this post, in accordance with my own bias.

FYI: As I was keyboarding this post, the cartoon character currently contaminating the capitol expressed his admiration for May.

It being the start of a three-day weekend, I don't know if anyone will be around; and I have plans myself. However, I will check in every couple of hours or so. Have a good one!

What we are seeing world wide is the result of neoliberalism and the mindset of those who have risen to the peaks of power. This quote is from an essay, written a while back, on the myth of meritocracy which fuels neoliberalism.

The big problem here is not that income inequality is due to a myriad of neoliberal excuses such as lack of training for the new economy or that unions are the causes. But in reality, it is the greed of rent seeking neoliberal class that is defining aspect of the neoliberal ideology and that somehow meritocracy should be rewarded when the deck is stacked against most of the American workforce.

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"I don't want to run the empire, I want to bring it down!" ~Dr. Cornel West

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F Kennedy

If you have handy a link to the last essay in your wonderful series about neoliberalism, I would love it if you post it or send it to me in a private message. If it's too hard to find, I'll understand: the search engine here sends me hate mail.

Just because I am a broken record on this issue: Wealth inequality, IMO, should be our focus, not income inequality. Hillary made a much publicized move of hiring 200 people to advise her how to pretend to be a populist without scaring the wealthy. Of course, we later realized that was just more Clinton bs: she had already explained to them the difference between a private position (e.g., I love Goldman Sachs.)a and a private position (e.g. We have to figure out a way to make things more fair.)

But, I digress: AFAIK, Hillary never referred to wealth inequality, only to income inequality. Sanders, regardless of what anything thinks of him, is one of the few who mentions wealth inequality. Why?

The time when the federal government will cap the compensation that private companies may pay their upper management ranges from many years from now to never. From time to time, the federal government does raise the minimum wage, albeit too little, too seldom and too slowly. And, wage and price controls notwithstanding, that's about all the federal government has done about income inequality in a long time. People would scream about a slippery slope to nationalizing private companies and communism and a bunch of other nonsense.

However, wealth inequality can be, and has been, addressed by tax laws and cutting or eliminating federal corporate welfare. Provided Congress and the POTUS are not afraid of alienating big donors, of course.

What we are seeing world wide is the result of neoliberalism and the mindset of those who have risen to the peaks of power. This quote is from an essay, written a while back, on the myth of meritocracy which fuels neoliberalism.

The big problem here is not that income inequality is due to a myriad of neoliberal excuses such as lack of training for the new economy or that unions are the causes. But in reality, it is the greed of rent seeking neoliberal class that is defining aspect of the neoliberal ideology and that somehow meritocracy should be rewarded when the deck is stacked against most of the American workforce.

term is new to you as well; i use it a lot, as do many socialists & other anti-capitalists who are well aware that capitalism itself oppresses and immiserates the lower (and increasingly middle) classes. by the by, jacobin is largely a DSA (reform capitalist) website, not an actual socialist website.